Road To Power: Aaron's Resolve
Aaron wandered through the courtyard of the Koma Inu guild, one of the allies of his own guild, Dragon Gunfire. The building's aura and beauty was a stark contrast to his own guilds dark and gloomy look. However he still liked his guild building as it had been his home. After a moment of walking he found the man he was looking for, Lucio Numens. He was kneeling by some plants with a dark blue hat covering his head, giving shade to some of his face, but judging by the sweat on his face, it only helped so much. Judging by the dirt on his face and cloths he seemed to have been there for a while. Walking up to the man Aaron kneeled a few feet away and reached over to tap the man's shoulder. Before Aaron could even touch Lucio, the man grabbed ahold of Aaron's wrist, flipping him over his shoulder and onto the grassy floor. Lucio held on with an iron grip, not allowing his opponent to escape. "Who are you?" Aaron was in utter shock as he was so easily flipped over the man's shoulder. It wasn't like he made a lot of noise, or he didn't think so as he couldn't hear his own footsteps. 'Even so, it's not like I was exuding an aura, im not here to fight, just to learn. Oh crap he's saying something. Where did I put William's note?' While still on the ground Aaron held up his pointer finger indicating for his opponent to hold on as he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a note that he handed to Lucio. The more read: 'Due to my idiocy, I have lost my hearing in a battle with a comrade. I am hear to learn the way of Mushin from you. P.S. I'm a dunce.' Lucio quickly read over the wrote. "Wow, you really are an idiot. You used the wrong form of 'here'. Well, if you can't hear, how am I supposed to teach you." Lucio made a few quick hand gestures. "Do you know sign language?" Aaron nodded to the man and made a few quick hand gestures stating that he did understand but he was still working on it. His clumsiness would make it clear that his loss was recent. He then made another few hand gestures stating that he could read lips. "Oh right then," said Lucio. "Sorry about the flip earlier. My body reacts on its own. I'm more accustomed to the magical signatures of my comrades in the guild, but your power is foreign to me." Aaron shrugged his shoulders and turned his head a bit indicating it was alright. He then motioned with his hands, forming a clumsy sentence that he hoped the man would understand. "I would like to learn Mushin." "Hm," mumbled Lucio. "How did you find out about Mushin? It's not exactly something I tell everyone about. And not many people can use it." "William Mercury." Was the name that Aaron spelled out. He wanted to speak back but wanted to get used to being silent. His mentor had always told him that he would be good as the strong and silent type, guess it would be good to find out. "I see. So you're with Dragon Gunfire?" Aaron gave a quick nod and rolled up his sleeve to show the mage his violet colored mark. "I know it's a hard state to master, but I am willing to play-''" Aaron caught himself as he accidentally used to wrong sign, with a heavy sigh and a moment to think he used the correct sign, "-try." "Alright then. Like I said, it's not an easy ability to master. Tell me, do you have any skill in energy manipulation or emotional control?" Aaron nodded at the man's questions and channeled his ethernano to form a light aura around him. "''I have good energy control that I learned from William.'" He signed as he let the aura die down. "Great, that's the first step to learning how to use Mushin. The second step is this." Lucio got back to his feet. A blue sphere formed in his palm. He began to play with it, throwing it up and down, and kicking it around like a hackie sack. "Right now you're able to control your emotions, using energy manipulation to cancel out intangibility and strip magical defenses from your enemies. The next step is this; being able to manipulate your energy so finely it can take independent form from your body. This is called Qui." Aaron mouthed the word Qui a few times as he watched his new mentor play with the ball of blue light. Deciding to try it for himself he put both hands in front of his body, leaving enough space between them to fit a ball as he used his energy manipulation to create the aura he had used earlier and proceeded to concentrate it to his hands. While he had concentrated energy to various parts of his body, he had never tried to give it an independent form. As the aura coated his hands it got a bit brighter and a small light could be seen being created in his hands before it went out and his aura disappeared. "Hm, you're pretty good at it, for this being your first try." Lucio walked up to him, and poked him on the elbow. The ball immediately dissipated. "But you need to be able to maintain the creation's form even when under attack." Aaron groaned as the ball dissipated from the light poke. This would obviously be harder than he had first thought. Taking his stance again he focused his energy again, this time with far more concentration and created the small ball a second time. Lucio poked him again, but this time the ball didn't dissipate. He poked him again, applying more pressure, but this time the ball dissipated. "That's already better than your last time. You need to improve to a degree where I can touch you any way I want and the ball won't dissipate. Then the real training will begin." "How do I do that?" Signed the young man as he looked at his hands, this was his first time doing it and it required more concentration then he even knew he was capable of. But if he could master this than he would become even stronger and he wouldn't have to always rely on his dragon Slayer magic. "You know what they say, 'practice makes perfect'. You need to concentrate on the sphere to keep it active, keep your magical energy flowing. The first step to moving without thought, is not moving with much thought. The ability to create this energy must become like second nature to you. Then you'll be able to form anything you like." Lucio held out his arms in front of him, pulling his hand from his other like he was unsheathing a sword from a scabbard. A blue blade of his magical energy formed and he took a few swings with it. "For now, you should stick with more basic creations though." 'Show-off.' Thought Aaron as he watched Lucio swing his new sword around. This was far more difficult then he had anticipated but he wanted to keep going. Taking his stance again he forced his eternano around his hands and tried again at creating the ball in the first place. 'Moving with much thought...Great advice...' Lucio sat on a stone in the garden, watching Aaron try to use Qui. "When you form a sphere that can be maintained indefinitely, I'll open my eyes." And at that, he closed them. Aaron gave a little sigh as he created a dim sphere that was only centimeters in diameter and held it there for a few seconds before I broke apart. Cursing himself he repeated the process, taking deep breath and trying again. 'Why is this so hard?' "Because you're trying too hard," said Lucio, his eyes still closed. "Magical energy is the natural essence all lifeforms possess. Qui is the usage of that essence in its purest form. Now try again." 'Trying to hard...' Was Aaron's last thought as he pushed his hands back ready to focus on creating the sphere until a new voice, no not a voice, a memory reared its head in his mind. Etherion had taught him how to meditate at a young age, he always said to focus on nothing other than his breathing. 'Maybe...' With that he closed his eyes and let out a long, slow breath, letting his thoughts float away in his mind as he simply breathed. As he did this the ball he had created was just a bit brighter and a bit more stable. It stayed there for about 5 seconds before going out. Lucio slightly opened one eye before closing it again. "Improvement is improvement. Keep going. I haven't eaten yet today." Briefly Aaron's thoughts drifted to food and the next ball he created disappeared after only a second making him groan. 'Freaking dragon Slayer appetite...' He thought as he cleared his mind to the best of his ability, then focused on his breathing as he created another ball of light that last a few seconds longer than his previous one. "Come on, come one, I haven't got all day," Lucio continued to goad. Aaron tuned out his mentor while he focused on his breathing. This was harder than he had thought it would be, but he kept going. This time when he created the ball it didn't disappear, it simply hovered between his hands. This time Lucio opened one of his eyes all the way, yet it still closed just as fast. "Good, now it seems as though you can remain them indefinitely." Lucio got to his feet and approached Aaron as he was concentrating on the ball. "Yet, it's still not permanent." Lucio struck Aaron in the gut with a light palm thrust. A blue beam of energy shot through him, and the sphere disappeared as well. "Keep going." Aaron grunted at his mentors surprise attack. The strike itself didn't hurt him, rather it hit him where he had recently been stabbed by a sword so it was still tender. Going back to his meditative state he held his hands out and created the ball of light once again, this time trying to add more of his eternano to keep it going. Luci walked back over to his rock, eyes still closed. "That's better, but you're still not doing it right. That sphere would still disperse if I hit you with one of my own Qui attacks." Aaron thought for a moment about how he could make the ball more 'real' in a sense. Then an idea popped into his head, although he had no real idea how it would work. Taking a seat on the ground he crossed his legs under themselves in a meditative style. Then he placed his hands in a similar position to what they had been, but was a bit more relaxed. Focusing solely in his breathing he let his eternano move around his arms as he concentrated it into a small ball in his hands. Lucio felt the concentration of energy in Aaron's hand. "That's good, very good. But still not good enough. It won't last long enough." Switching his hand position he placed his left palm under his right and completely relaxed his hands, letting the energy of his bottom hand support the energy in his right and increase it's output. This time the ball formed a little misshapen, looking more like an egg than a ball, and it was more dense. This was perhaps due to the more relaxed feeling he had undertaken so that he could put the whole of his attention on creating the ball. Lucio walked up to Aaron, taking the egg out of Aaron's hand. He changed around the shape so that it was that of a sphere once again, before putting it back in Aaron's hands. "You need to work more on your shape control." Aaron watched Lucio change the egg shaped energy into a ball before placing back in his hands. As he tried to keep the ball in his hands he found that he needed more concentration in order to keep the balls sphere shape. As he let it dissipate he signed to Lucio. "How do I learn shape control?" "You'll need to master energy control first," said Lucio. "Clear your mind. Emotions are the enemy of magic manipulation."